In 2015, all United Nations member states adopted the Agenda for Sustainable Development, a compact for ending poverty and other deprivations around the world. At the core of this Agenda are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which recognize the interrelationships between poverty reduction strategies and improving health and other planetary outcomes. While the world has seen great progress in many ways in recent decades – including gradual declines in global health workforce shortages – much work remains to be done with only 5 years remaining before the international deadline.
Strengthening the health workforce is intricately linked to achieving the SDGs. It is addressed most directly under Goal #3 “Good health and well-being”, notably its associated Target 3.c to “substantially increase health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce in developing countries.” However, Canada’s indicator framework for tracking our country’s progress towards the SDGs omits monitoring health workforce size and distribution.
Some other ways, often overlooked, that illustrate how strengthening the health workforce is inextricable from achieving the SDGs:
Goal 1: No poverty
Strengthening the health workforce can help reduce levels of ill-health in the population, impacting not only on healthcare expenses for households and social protection systems but also on human capital and potential earnings.
Goal 2: Zero Hunger
Reducing food insecurity can lead to improved health, fewer preventable hospitalizations for chronic diseases, and reduced burden to the healthcare system which can, in turn, leave more room for investments in health workforce retention and equitable distribution.
Goal 3: Gender Equality
Given that 70% of healthcare providers are women, ensuring women’s equitable access to resources to achieve their full potential is essential to strengthening the health workforce.
Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth
Given the international target of “equal pay for work of equal value”, eliminating pay disparities in health occupations by gender and ethnicity is fundamental to promoting sustainable economic growth and decent work for all.
Goal 10: Reduced inequalities within and among countries
Strengthening the domestic education of health workers would support a more sustainable health workforce in Canada and, in turn, help promote responsible and ethical practices in the migration of health personnel from countries least able to shoulder the loss.
Goal 13: Climate action
Strengthening the primary and community care workforce can reduce the number of potentially avoidable hospitalizations and, in turn, help curb ward-level hospital emissions of greenhouse gases.
Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals
Strengthening health workforce data systems through effective partnerships is essential to monitoring progress towards the SDGs, including improving the quality and reliability of health worker data disaggregated by gender, geographical location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts while scalable internationally.